Have you read any of the Guardiola books? Guardiola is fixated with positional play and seeks to have a strong grip on midfield with and without the ball - that means having players in optimal positions to either retain possession or to counter press in transition. (unless he is playing long ), He also usually seeks numerical superiority in midfield. There is no way Wenger has the same philosophy. Wenger has typically been possession oriented, and favours attacking over control.
I believe this is true also. It's a big part of the problem - that Wenger indulges players too much. But I also think Ramsey is missing key qualities you would expect an 8/10 to have
Arsenal's best games over the last five years have been highlighted by the control we had over the game (2-0 at home against Liverpool, 2-0 at home against Bayern, 2-0 at home to Sperz, the beat downs of Chelski and United at home). We are disagreeing over what control of the midfield is: it's not as if Wenger doesn't care whether Arsenal control the midfield or not. The issue is that Arsenal haven't recruited the right players in midfield.
Wenger might 'care' about controlling the midfield, but he doesn't set up his teams correctly to do it. Also, possession isn't control (not directed at you @mebeSajid, more at the comment above by @NorthBank). Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler (Debates whether to go down the rabbit hole of Xhaka defense...another time, maybe.)
The ultimate organizational dysfunction at Arsenal is that the org's objectives are used to vindicate the ideology, rather than ideology being shaped to better further the objectives. Wenger cares about "controlling the midfield" insomuch as he can do it in a way that proves his philosophy right.
Agreed. And he hasn't always had the best personnel lately to acheive this... especially in recent years. Of course possession doesn't exactly equal control... if it did we'd probably have won the league several times in the last 5-10 years. But possession is one very significant factor in control. Isn't it hard to control midfield without controlling possession? Wouldn't even Pep agree with that premise?
Well yes - but its down to the details of how you try to do it For instance Pep in his first year at Bayern plays an extremely high line to "kessel" the opposition and used the first 20 passes of possession to establish optimum spacing - so you try to dominate the ball and transition. Then we began to see the fullbacks play inside the wingers and then eventually as extra midfielders - all about owning the central zones But later he got much more direct - especially in the tussles vs BVB - so you'd see the ball dumped long so that the midfield could stay organised in its block That's closer to the Jose style where you use a medium block to make sure you always have numbers to contest the central areas Wenger teams have tended to be quite prone to countering precisely because they take too many risks in attack and especially are quite flank oriented. How many times did we see the ball worked lamely to the likes of Sagna to dump in an aimless cross and trigger a transition? That's the exact opposite of trying to keep control of the midfield zones
I’m going to advance an argument that I expect many of you to disagree with. It starts with the assumption that man for man, Arsenal aren’t good enough when compared to the teams currently above them in the table. Of the players on the roster for the last 18 months, only Ozil and Sanchez would have had a chance to walk into the starting lineups of any of the 5 teams currently above Arsenal in the table. A healthy Kos could probably walk into several of the starting lineups, but he hasn’t been 100% healthy for the last year an a half. Nacho and Bellerin might have started for City last year, but not this year. Nacho could probably start for United as a left full back and Cheh could start for Liverpool, but I don’t see to many other players being more that squad players for teams in the top 5 (See Ox). So if we accept that assumption, how is it that in all competitions that a tactically naïve manager has a record of 7 wins, 6 ties, and 5 losses against Conte, Pep, Pochettino, and Mourinho over the last year and a half. If you eliminate the pk victory in the Community Shield, Arsene’s record against these coaches is 6-6-5, with an inferior team. The lone exception to this trend is Klopp, against whom Arsene is 0-3 during the same period. So at least for the big games Arsene does seem to be getting his tactics right. I’d even suggest that de Gea is the only reason his tactics didn’t work against United, earlier this season, when Arsenal had 16 shots on target to Uniteds 4. So blame Arsene for the team he has put together, but stop this nonsense about him being tactically naïve. If you want to debate my conclusion, I believe you have to start attacking my basic assumption, i.e. tell me who else walks into any of the teams above Arsenal in the table.
I agree with you roughly 90% First I have also said Arsenal only have 2 elite players and a lot of quite mediocre players Second, Its all in the margins. Wumger has been good enough to finish 2nd in recent years. He's not terrible, but he is not as good as the 5 managers above him IMO. But to circle back to your opening point, now the transfers have been taken off him - and area where he was floundering, i expect him to do better simply because he will have better players Mkhi is more talented than any midfielder we've had since Nasri (excluding Ozil)
My point, in highlighting those games, is that the issue is not a function of Wenger's tactical preferences and philosophy. It's a function of personnel. This season against Sperz aside, who played in the midfield in those games? The problem is that we've been unable to recruit a proper ball playing midfielder.
Of course wenger is tactically naive Look at the combinations in midfield over the years, the way we have played against superior opposition in the cl and been routinely slaughtered He actually had us compact and in a toght counter attacking style in 06 and got us to the final. Since then he has routinely used a 4231 with no holding midfielders that has seen us regularly obliterated by Utd, Bayern, barca in the same manor He also trusts his players too much, remember 2009 when we played an almost 442 with cesc and denilson left on an island together? Player recruitment is part of this and he is also responsible for that Arsenal dominate some games in possession when we play vs a low block but how many times have we seen us ‘dominate’ possession till the final third and play too many sideways and intricate passes only to be countered? Teams are happy for arsenal to have the ball because if they defend well we have to rely on ozil almost on his own to find a space This now has been negated by miki somewhat but we have all been calling for a wide player who can pass and cross well for years! We haven’t had a good crossing full back for a decade The fact of the matter is Arsene has been left behind the likes of pep and even Jose who at least establish an identity without the ball, we just have one with it
Would those players be better under a different manager? Could Ramsey/Wilshere/Xhaka/OG have been made to play that well with a different manager giving them a clearly defined role within a set system? I agree they haven't played well enough to be able to displace anyone on other teams, but are they performing to their potential? If not, why? Most contend that we could do better with the talent we have and the reason we don't is due to AW. Do you feel AW has gotten the best out of these players that anyone other manager could have?
I think most here will say that Wenger's best days are behind him. You cannot be lucky 700+ times...I agree with that. But he has been routinely trounced by clubs big and small in critical games far too often lately. We should have won the league two years ago. Had the best opportunity. Who would you place the blame on? I see your sentiments and empathize with you but we need to move forward here mate.
See the earlier post about our record in "big" games the last 18 months. Horror show against Liverpool aside, it's downright decent.
The issue of player quality is an interesting one. There are the makings of a good team here and there has been for at least 5 years, if not more. There are two issues that muddy the waters when we discuss player quality and they're hard to separate. It's the lack of a few elite players and the lack of an overall philosophy about fit. We've needed a versatile disciplined midfielder for over a decade. There have been a few of those guys worldwide and they're on the best teams: Busquets, Xabi Alonso, older Schweinstieger, Carrick, De Rossi, If we consider that those players may not be available to us, then we need to look at the second tier of guys in that role: Matic, Kante, Casemiro, the City twins, Vidal, Khedira, etc. A similar argument can be made about striker and defense as well. We've lacked on the recruiting front because we can't find a player to fit our plan because there isn't a plan. Part of the manager's job is to use functional players to their optimum level. Wenger doesn't do that and it makes our players look alternatingly world class and complete garbage (e.g. Ramsey).
I'll answer your question with another question, other than two young goalkeepers that most on this board had no faith in and maybe Carlos Vela can you name any Arsenal player that transferred to another team and significantly improved as a player. I can certainly name a couple of Arsenal players that went elsewhere and were flops, one of them is apparently training with Arsenal right now.